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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26660617">Red Relevance</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/KolorfulKyandii/pseuds/KolorfulKyandii'>KolorfulKyandii</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU (Comics), Person of Interest (TV), Red Robin (Comics)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>#onlyingotham, Accidental Voyeurism, Age Difference, Alfred Pennyworth is the Best, Attempted Kidnapping, Attempted Murder, Baby Helena Wayne, Batfamily (DCU) Feels, Case Fic, Damian Wayne is Redbird, F/F, F/M, M/M, Married Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne, Romantic Fluff, Stalking, Tim Drake is So Done, Underage Relationship(s)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-26</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 11:22:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Underage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,126</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26660617</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/KolorfulKyandii/pseuds/KolorfulKyandii</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Interest Crew gets a new Number and goes to survey the situation. It gets increasingly frustrating as the kid rebuffs their investigation and protection at every turn.</p><p>From Tim's perspective, he's got some new stalkers.</p><p>Bruce has been smiling, Helena just turned two, and Damian just willingly passed down the Robin title to Cullen. Everyone is steadily working through their past traumas, beginning to achieve some sort of happiness.</p><p>Tim has too much to protect to let this situation get out of hand.</p><p>- - -</p><p>Gradually, Tim lifted his head from staring at the magazines, fingers still splayed over the surface. His steel gaze drifted to the air vent and locked on. Cold eyes glinted, his lip rising to bare his teeth in a snarl; a faint red light shone between the slots, and the screws had lost a tiny bit of brand-new paint from the center.</p><p>Far away in a dark room, every hair on Finch’s arms stood on end.</p><p>- - -</p><p>Bruce and Selina married, and everything took a different path.<br/>Written just for fun; irregular and far apart updates.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Cassandra Cain &amp; Tim Drake, Harold Finch &amp; John Reese, Root | Samantha Groves/Sameen Shaw, Selina Kyle/Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake &amp; Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake/Damian Wayne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>83</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Day 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><p>
  <span>Reese tapped a hand to the earpiece, activating his side of the speaking channel. “Who?”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Timothy Drake. He’s a college student, moved to New York for one semester only – his main college doesn’t have the classes he needed to finish his degree. His Mother died when he was twelve, Father in a home invasion a few years after. He’s a genius – by the time he finished mandatory high school, he already had covered all his College Prereqs. That was when he was sixteen, three years ago. Timothy’s going to have his Masters in Engineering at the end of this semester. Very impressive considering all he’s survived. In addition to his parents’ deaths, he was in a hostage situation at his high school, and was trapped for a full month in Gotham when it was declared No Man’s Land and abandoned to the gangs.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Experiences like that tend to get kids thinking the same way a soldier does. So, either he thought he could outsmart the system and got himself into something stupid – or possibly he saw too much at one of those incidents.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Those are the most probable reasons. I’m sending you the address. Good luck with this one, Mister Reese.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Thank you, Finch.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Click.</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>- - - - - - - - - - - -</span>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“He’s been sitting on his laptop for </span>
  <em>
    <span>six hours</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Finch. Without moving- wait, he moved-… he tried to get up, discovered his legs are cramped, and is now on the floor. He’s not moving again… I think he fell asleep, his breathing went even.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“……”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“……”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>College.</span>
  </em>
  <span> Such memories.” Finch murmured.</span>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span>- - - - - - - - - - - -</span>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The chime of his computer woke him up – Tim pushed himself up off the floor, blinking the sleep out of his eyes. The time he noted as he opened the screen said it had been two hours. A good amount of time then, he was exhausted enough most of it was probably REM sleep. He would be able to increase his patrol time that night to compensate, else he would never be able to sleep when he got back.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Someone was trying to hack his computer. They were good, he noted as the numbers scrolled past. Typing speed had to be at least three times average – they spent more time typing keyboard than writing. A professional hacker.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Who in the world would want into his civilian computer that badly? Not his Wayne Corp laptop, but his school laptop?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He decided to let them in with only a small struggle. The Bats weren't called paranoid by even those in hiding for nothing – overprotecting a student laptop would be suspicious. Thus, they only heightened security to 'difficult' on their civilian equipment – discreetly running some numbers in the background to check who was connected to him and the current activity.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They were right here in New York. And hacking him in person. Interesting. He clicked to check what active signals they were connected to – the internet source was very sketchy, but there was a permanent two-way link that he decided to look in on. Activating it to a three-way link, the light signaling his laptop microphone flicked to green – it was a communication channel?</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He quickly muted his mic. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>I’m in."</span>
  </em>
  <span> A voice murmured. Male, a bit of a shake. Physically he would be wispy. Quiet, else the voice would be gentler from use.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <em>
    <span>"That was quick."</span>
  </em>
  <span> Another voice responded. Smooth and controlled. Tim checked – the systems were connected to a phone call, a receiver located... across the street from him. They were watching him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>It’s just a laptop, Mr. Reese, it doesn’t have the power to keep up with my coding speed. There are rather advanced defenses for the type, and it's very oddly programmed... I think our number did them himself, no doubt with that small-time degree in Cryptology.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He let them systematically go through his flies – the movies, assignments, everything else, even as he pretended to be fighting back against the intruders. Foremost he made sure any chats with his brothers had been completely wiped. Secondly, he double-checked his browser history, deleting a few research sites about some martial arts styles he’d used in identifying an opponent last week, then made sure none of his card numbers or personal information were saved on Amazon. It didn’t take long, then he let them go ahead and hack the areas as he finished at their own pace.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>He’s trying his best but I’ve got full access and decrypted his files. He knows it though.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Careless, Finch.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was silence.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>He went through and deleted things like account passwords and card information before I got to them first thing, even before trying to protect his computer from me. Our number doesn’t have much on the computer for someone with two technology degrees. His largest folder contains his school assignments – I glanced them over and they’re what they seem. The second largest one is an entire series of pirated Disney movies labeled ‘Dame’. Everything else is just labeled basically. By class, a folder of memes, a folder of mp4s from his phone of lecture recordings... his browser history is random, but half of it seems to be research for assignments and the other half is split between looking up word synonyms, and Tumblr. All except those movies… he even has the titles wrong. For example, what looks to be Bambi – I’m skipping over the movie to make sure it’s just the movie, nothing slipped into the run time – is labeled ‘Reincarnated B With A Dad’, Lion King is ‘Furry Opposite Jason’, and Brave is ‘Soulless Artemis’. I don’t understand, this doesn’t fit the rest of his organizational pattern.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tim carefully did not giggle, the man – Reese? - on the rooftop spying on him would see and they might realize he’d slipped in to listen through their connection.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Alright. Go over everything you got. I’ll keep an eye on the kid. He’s still on his computer. Who knows what he’ll do after he realizes you got through.”</span>
  </em>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span>- - - - - - - - - - - -</span>
</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>
  <span>When he got home from school the next day, Tim stopped at the door, then carefully opened the lock. Something was off, but he didn’t know what; the near sixth-sense developed by prowling the rooftops as a shadow in the night led to a certain… instinct, in that regard. Call it survival, call it supernatural – he’d be dead without the sharp edges all Bats had.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’d been wrong before when opponents had proficiency in the shadows themselves, but that wasn’t it. The momentary pause on the doorstep passed, and he walked in with one careful footfall placed at a time, paying attention to each sense one by one.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Slowly, he placed his keys down in the tray a few steps into the doorway, closing the door behind him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Slowly, one more step.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Even more slowly, he extended a hand, cold magazine pages rustling in the dead silence as he put a hand down. He slowly slid the magazine from sideways on top of the pile, to even with the edge of the desk, stacked perfectly on top of the magazine beneath it... the way it had been when he left for the day. If they’d looked at what magazines he read, they wanted information on him – not just habits, but hobbies, interests.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Someone had been in his apartment.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He stood there in silence for nearly thirty seconds, cataloging and re-cataloging as fractal differences in the air and light around him shifted, every sense alive with the electricity of adrenaline.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Reading his magazines.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Several books were out of place on the shelf, out too far instead of pressed to the wall.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He had left his laptop with a corner slightly over the edge of the table, and now it was placed evenly in the middle.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The scent of cologne was just a trace on the air.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>There was too much dust in the air, floating due to being wiped off surfaces like cabinets that may hold fingerprints.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>They were good. Very good. His temporary apartment had a security system, but they’d had many hours while he was at school, and it wasn’t the Pentagon. From what he had seen of it, this was a two-man team, one an immaculate hacker and the other so meticulous as to even pay attention to fingerprints and the order his books had been in. People like this team hacked the Pentagon for </span>
  <em>
    <span>fun</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Tim would know.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He’d chosen this apartment for many reasons. One of them being that due to the hallway, there weren’t many places to put a camera that would easily see him arriving and exiting. Another, a 24-hour doorman. The doorman wouldn’t have seen them come in, would have been distracted somehow – no one to give a description. Security tapes would have been erased. The keypad lock on his front door will have been wiped of prints.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>Gradually, Tim lifted his head from staring at the magazines, fingers still splayed over the surface. His steel gaze drifted to the air vent and locked on. Cold eyes glinted, his lip rising to bare his teeth in a snarl; a faint red light shone between the slots, and the screws had lost a tiny bit of brand-new paint from the center.</p><p>Far away in a dark room, every hair on Finch’s arms stood on end.</p><p>
  <span>Tim strode into the small living room with purpose, from the hall the vent faced. He jerked open a drawer to the TV stand and withdrew a handheld screwdriver to take off the vent covers, shut the blinds with an angry snap, and got to work, using the darkness as an advantage to see the red lights. Rather than turning off the camera immediately, he set it in the center of the table.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>He went through every vent, every cabinet, every book that had been disturbed; moved every single piece of furniture, checked on top of the cabinets where they met the wall. He combed every damn square inch and cushion three times.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Then he sat down in a chair in front of the cameras, and smiled daringly as he brought down the hammer on all five delicate instruments in turn.</span>
</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Day 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He was aware of the eyes on him as he made breakfast. Whatever they had wanted when they went through his computer, they obviously didn't find it. But instead of making a move, they were… watching.</p><p>Or maybe his stalker just had some kind of thing for watching men make themselves egg white omelets, or for watching him sprinting to get to class in time after the line at Sunbucks made him late.</p><p>Normally, he wouldn’t wait, rather just walk in and use the machines himself. Tim had owned every Sunbucks on the East Coast since buying up the franchise after No Man’s Land, when the company threatened to shut down every coffee house in Gotham. He couldn’t allow that! Coffee was a necessity of life! But right now, he was being watched, and currently being in crowds was to his advantage.</p><p>And then he hit something, hard; twisting to keep his coffee from spilling.</p><p>
  <em> Maneuver successful. </em>
</p><p>“I apologize.”</p><p>He knew that voice – the one from last night. Cautious, raspy in a way Richard often tried to be on patrol, using sex and his target’s attraction to him to their advantage - but this man's was natural. That’s why it stood out so clearly in a crowd. Voices like that were unusual. It<em> usually </em>took extensive vocal training to condition your voice box to use those tones without hitching.</p><p>Tim took it all in with a razor-sharp gaze. Nice suit, but not too nice, the businessman sort; it fits on his frame in the exact same way Bruce’s suits fit him – hiding the muscle underneath. His gaze was too intent, most people did not maintain eye contact for more than a couple seconds without a flicker to the side. Hands held just a bit closer to the body than was normal, hovering around the gun holstered under his clothing when at rest.</p><p>
  <em> Assassin. </em>
</p><p>Even more of a giveaway was the attempt to pickpocket him. Probably attempting for his phone, but Tim hoped he enjoyed the souvenir he got instead – Tim’s Sunbucks receipt. Tim was not and never would be ashamed of his favorite being extra-shot caramel lattes. This guy could judge him all he wanted, the middle finger and an eye roll would be the only response.</p><p>Great, so it was assassins stalking him.</p><p>Nothing new there.</p><p>The question was; what was an assassin not associated with the League doing here? After Tim Drake no less? It was widely known in the underworld, especially assassins guilds, that Timothy Jackson Drake-Wayne was a<em> League </em>mark. Who would<em> dare </em>encroach on League territory just for a  <em> rich kid? </em></p><p>This guy looked good, but he wasn’t Bruce, and Ras Al Ghul usually made sending a full fleet of a thousand ninja his<em> opening </em>move – Tim had Ras’ people<em> penciled in </em>for an attempt on his life every third Saturday of every month, except the days that Saturday fell on a family holiday.</p><p>Ras never<em> dared </em>interrupt a family day, and this Saturday was Jason Todd’s twenty-third birthday. Ras understood how much one of Jason’s birthdays passing meant to them, still sent an apology letter every year for his involvement in Jason’s death in the first place. The death had been absent of the chance for the child to prove his strength, the chance all warriors should have to die in honorable combat. The letter was written unique for each year, with full acknowledgment of the dishonor of Ras’ actions and the shame it brought to both the Wayne and Al Ghul names.</p><p>But the man in front of him right now hadn’t stabbed Tim with anything, put anything in his pockets, or done anything to him at all - well, besides pickpocketing him. In the split second before impact, Tim had seen it coming and tried his best to move sideways, ending up at an angle that meant he need only direct a jab forward and it would be very, very painful for the stranger.</p><p>This wasn’t an assassination. They were scoping him out. Why bother scoping a rich boy out before the assassination? What were they after? Security access at Wayne Enterprises? Hostage to get to Bruce? Why bother?</p><p>Tim met the man’s gaze with his eyes narrowed.</p><p>“It’s fine.” He responded shortly. “My coffee didn’t spill, that’s all that matters to me. Gotta get to class though, I’m late.”</p><p>Tim dodged around the man, allowing his arm to brush his side; the tiny tracker hooked seamlessly into the stitching of the suit, a tiny velcro-hooked burr the size of a flea. Untraceable.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>
  <em> Pairing failed. </em>
</p><p>"He knows not to leave Bluetooth or Wifi on." John murmured aloud, knowing Finch would hear him.</p><p>"Somehow," Finch replied uneasily, "I'm not surprised. Most unusual, though.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>Columbia University's sprawling campus offered a wide range of opportunities for the modern vigilante, including many places to stash supplies.</p><p>After managing to make it through his first class - with a headache, as usual, an everyday occurrence. It was easy to slip away to the sprawling field that had been planted with eccentric designs of flower trellis and fauna. It was used both for the botany courses and for the enjoyment of the students. The field was sectioned in four by walkways, each quarter with its own unique maze tucking away hidden study spots and benches. Tim ducked his way under a trellis and rounded a corner, storage shed at his back and windowless wall of a building where the gardens ended to his right. He quickly shifted some branches aside and used the thumbpad on the box buried in the ground, sitting and leaning against the shed so anyone approaching couldn't see it.</p><p>He swept his clothing for bugs, not that many people had trackers of the level he had put on that man; just to make double sure, he changed outfits. If they'd managed to track him during the hectic run that ended here, him changing into gym clothes would seem unremarkable.</p><p>Then, he opened his outside-Gotham work laptop; kept forever in the tablet pocket of the leather-bound Jansport backpack.</p><p>The tracker showed a location across town. Tim sent a server request for nearby feeds to the location. And there the stranger was on the park bench; sitting casually with a newspaper, surrounded by crunchy summer leaves. He was tucked away along a stone brick path with so many joggers it would nearly be called crowded. Despite the wide surrounding area scattered with grass and trees, he looked out of place in his suit coat among the summer t-shirts.</p><p>Tim made an odd sound in his throat. A <em>newspaper. </em></p><p>Tim balanced the laptop on his knee, taking a still shot and doing his best to enhance the quality. He didn't expect any results, but he set a background facial recognition check to scan, keeping the feed up as he took out his class notebook. People darted past on the screen, none drawing the assassin's interest. Tim started on homework, keeping an ear on his surroundings.</p><p>Bird calls; he could identify most of them thanks to Nightwing, who insisted they learn to communicate with mostly hand signals and chirps. After Cassandra joined the family, they lost the chance to ever escape from Nightwing's constant chitter. The language of Robin. Cass loved it, so there was nothing they could do.</p><p>The campus' sounds remained normal. Yelling across the yard faintly reaching him, the sound of a teacher's golf carts charging down the middle path through the terraces. No steps approached him.</p><p>There was movement at the park bench on his work screen. A woman approached the man at the bench and sat down casually. Tim took another screen still.</p><p>They exchanged words, and both looked away from each other as her hand breezed over the man's pocket, before she stood and left.</p><p>Tim snorted. Oh my God. Well, they certainly were not League. Honestly, if anything, based on handoff tactics, they were American trained. Possibly English or French.</p><p>He was in the clear then, unless they had a different operative watching him. So far, the only two that seemed to be assigned to him were the assassin and his handler, the hacker. But, the woman on the screen proved they weren't alone.</p><p>The download speed halved as he started the search for the woman simultaneously, using too much processing power. He didn't care, since he had to go to his next class soon anyway, and Tim would rather have the results close together and one of them an hour later if it meant getting the other an hour earlier.</p><p>While he was at it, after carefully analyzing his phone for any bugs and viruses, he sent a text with the two screenshots attached to Bruce about him being followed. He explained his immediate plans and lack of response in case of being watched, then wiped all the messages and call history from his memory card.</p><p> </p><p>- - - - -</p><p> </p><p>When Tim opened the door to his apartment once again, he was more than exhausted. Abnormal Psychology, one of his 'extra interest' study classes that would never gain a degree on record, always gave him way too many flashbacks. It was agitating. But, it was necessary, and goddamn useful too. He just wished he was starting the school day with it instead of finishing, it would be much easier to deal with when he'd just had coffee and before the day's math headache began.</p><p>Speaking of coffee.</p><p>He double-checked for any signs his apartment had been broken into again, including his own closed-system cameras that had gone up last night, but it would seem they learned their lesson the first time.</p><p>It took so, so horribly long to do the checks, but it was needed.</p><p>Now at last.</p><p>His<em> beloved</em>.</p><p>Tim started up the machine, switching settings and dumping his nice espresso blend in instead of just coffee beans.</p><p>An entire pot - well, three full measuring cups - of pure espresso. He was going to die gloriously. It would feel wonderful. Especially once it was brewed and mixed 60/40 with his milk, cream, cocoa, and sugar blend.</p><p>Damian would have a heart attack just looking at it, Tim thought with no small amount of amusement.</p><p>Even more gloriously, he had only two homework assignments tonight - even though homework took him only a quarter of the time of his peers' average (he had nothing but the utmost respect for their dedication, spending that much time on homework would be INSANE!), and he had finished one of the two in the gardens. He was home free for the evening except for the sheet of ten physics problems, which trust him, took way longer than you would think.</p><p>But now, espresso. His precious, precious headache cure.</p><p>Lifting the stir rod, he took one big swallow, then slowly paced over to the table.</p><p>Espresso of this caliber was the kind of drink you savored, not chugged like his Redbull coffee combos. He may be a heathen, but at least he had <em>class</em> about it.</p><p>He was oblivious to the chaos happening on the outside until the door was flung open with a SWOOSH of air and slammed into the wall so hard it dented the doorstop, the SLAM of it deafening.</p><p>A scream filled the previously peaceful air, the voice high-pitched with rage, breaking on the high note. <strong> "<em>DRA </em> -KE!!!!!" </strong></p><p>The small body slamming into the room somehow avoided bumping the table, sparing his precious espresso. </p><p>"DO NOT LOOK AT YOUR PHONE- GRAYSON- DELETE IT! <em> DELETE IT!!!"  </em>Damian shrieked, charging him with katana drawn.</p><p>He heard the whine just a split second later, a high-pitched slamming noise.</p><p>He couldn't possibly have reacted fast enough. But, he'd had years, so in the exact same minuscule moment in time that the situation changed, Tim was ready. A moment too late to stop a speeding bullet, entire minutes before the average person would understand what was happening.</p><p>The flash of adrenaline, controlled, directed, danger at every corner. Who knew how many times he had turned to find a gun in his face, or on the temple of a hostage. Dark nights with no moon and clouded red skies, training under the Bat - the test for leaving the Cave on patrol being crossing an obstacle course while dodging shots by Alfred's BB gun, disarming him, and dismantling the gun to pieces before anyone took a close-range hit.</p><p>Fast thinking, assessment, observation in split seconds, reflex, reaction time; ground into him from even before he was Robin, watching the previous Robins flitting above the rooftops. A child, slipping from shadow to shadow in Crime Alley, knowing how to survive there nearly as well as the kids born there, all to keep watch over those that inspired him. Instinct. Survival. Intuition.</p><p>The katana was guided aside, swirled in a circle, and it was Tim's hand controlling the hilt from the apex. His other arm folded Damian into him as they turned in midair. The moment passed by almost slowly, almost too fast to notice, but the adrenaline burned the details in - the feeling of the cool air, Damian's weight, the katana's force as he sliced it down, the impact as they hit the wall - the <em> FEAR </em> - The sword was pointed at the window where the bullet came from, in preparation for the hail of glass shards before the second attempt.</p><p>He took it all in with only half a second's glance before turning to Damian with a panic that he would later deny. Damian- there was no blood. No blood. Tim's head spun in relief, and he nearly lost his grip on the katana,</p><p>The sniper bullet had been stopped by the two-inch thick bulletproof windows, but narrowly, the glass cracked and shattered so badly you couldn't see outside, creating an artwork that leaned into the room with the caught bullet - half out of the glass, half in - at the point.</p><p>He would have hit Damian at the exact same second the bullet did, Tim realized. It was pure luck the glass held; it wasn't made for sniper bullets.</p><p>Someone tried to murder Damian in Tim's home... No. No, the angle was too steep.</p><p>You had to be a damn good shot to aim a sniper bullet and still expect to hit your target's leg. Not run of the mill 'good' either; a high standard even among professionals, above and beyond. And even further - they'd aimed to kill someone going at him with a weapon, who would from an outsider seem like an attacker.</p><p>They wanted him alive no matter the cost, they would have crippled Dami for life if the bulletproofing hadn't held, and he was still being watched.</p><p>Tim's eyes narrowed in vivid <em>fury.</em></p>
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